[Role of angioplasty in the treatment of renal artery stenosis].

Atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis is frequent and is associated with a high incidence of morbidity and mortality, with a strong correlation with coronary artery disease, (Kalra et al., 2005; Cheung et al., 2002; Guo et al., 2007 [1-3]). The atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis is an independent predictive factor of death (Conlon et al., 1998 [4]). The treatment of this lesion does not have strong evidence. A lot of studies in this area suggest the angioplasty is superior in a big majority between surgery, and angioplasty with stent is superior between balloon angioplasty, but some studies fail to prove the superiority of angioplasty versus medical treatment. These studies have sadly a lot of mistakes and nowadays we don't know what is the treatment for our patients in a lot of cases. The angioplasty is indicated when there is a failure of antihypertensive medications for control of blood pressure, when it is associated with a renal insufficiency quickly progressive or when there is a lesion on each renal artery. Other studies must be organized for prove the superiority of angioplasty when there is a real stenosis, maybe with the use of fractional flow reserve.